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Matt Bushman stands inside the weight room at Sabino High School in Tucson, Ariz. on Monday, Oct. 14. Bushman announced he will attend Brigham Young University for college. Photographed by Noelle Haro-Gomez/for The Arizona Daily Star

HIGH SCHOOL FOOTBALL

Sabino's Bushman was destined for BYU

Matt Bushman stands inside the weight room at Sabino High School in Tucson, Ariz. on Monday, Oct. 14. Bushman announced he will attend Brigham Young University for college. Photographed by Noelle Haro-Gomez/for The Arizona Daily Star

Sabino High School tight end Matt Bushman enters the final two regular-season games of his Sabercats career with 106 catches for 2,476 yards and 36 touchdowns.

That puts him ahead of the marquee receivers in school history, statistically ahead of Stanford’s Keanu Nelson, who caught 61 passes as a senior; ahead of BYU’s Quinn Gooch, who caught 18 touchdown passes as a junior; and ahead of UCLA’s Brian Poli-Dixon, who caught 44 passes and 17 touchdowns as a senior.

Bushman, a senior, announced last week he will play collegiately at BYU. That was no surprise. His grandfather, Nephi Bushman, who became a Mormon church authority in Snowflake, graduated from BYU. Matt’s father, Benjamin Bushman, a Tucson psychologist, graduated from BYU.

The lure of BYU is such to those of the Mormon faith that in 1985, Arizona’s highly-recruited tight end Chris Smith of La Cañada, Calif., interrupted his UA career to serve a Mormon mission. He then transferred to BYU where he caught 1,156 yards of passes in 1990 from Ty Detmer, who won the Heisman Trophy that year.

Bushman said he will first serve a mission before playing for the Cougars.

The next big decision at Sabino is tackle Andrew Mike’s choice. It wouldn’t be a shock if Mike chose to play for Vanderbilt.